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jasmineh21

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 31, 2011
2
0
I have a JVC GR D250AA and have imported a 60 minute tape to my MAC BOOK PRO via iMovie. I would like to put this onto a DVD that I can play in my DVD player. How do I do this? Nothing on the export menu lights up. Also, it says that it is 14 GB, I have DVD-RW which are only 4.2GB....I am sure I am missing something. If anyone could help starting from...once the tape has been imported then...I would really really appreciate it.
 
Why don't you use iDVD, coming with iLife, which is already installed on every new Mac since the early 2000s?
Btw, a video DVD uses another compression (MPEG-2) for video than the captured footage you have (DV or Apple Intermediate Codec (AIC)).
MPEG-2 stores data more compressed and only saves every 15th frame (keyframe for GOP), therefore it will work and you will be able to burn 60 minutes onto a Single Layer (SL) DVD, if you create a video DVD via iDVD.

Maybe take a look at the HELP menu of iMovie AND iDVD to learn more about how to properly use it. Apple also offers some tutorials on www.apple.com/ilife.
 
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Bring it into iDVD. It will recompress your movie so it fits onto a DVD. You can typically put between 60-120 minutes of video on a DVD without a problem so you should be just fine.
 
I just did this over Xmas break with about 15 old home movies (on DV tape).

1. Import the movie clips into iMovie (I use iMovie '06 - it is waaayyy easier if you don't need all the editing bells & whistles)
2. Arrange the clips, edit/crop, and insert chapter markers where necessary
3. Export the movie into iDVD (I believe it is under the File menu)
4. Select what template to use (if you want). Drag movie clips (or still photos) into the 'drop zones' to complete movie.
5. Click on the 'burn' icon in iDVD (next to the Play triangle)

On my iMac the 60-70 minute DVD took 1 1/2 hours to complete. I always burn a second DVD as backup b/c the second one only takes about 15 minutes since the program has already assembled all the necessary files.

Hope that helps.

ps. I think it would be a HUGE improvement in iMovie if it had a DVD burning feature.....but Apple seems bent on getting rid of DVDs :mad:
 
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Many thanks for the advice above. I took it from iMovie to iDVD and have tried rendering it 3 times and have crashed each time (at different stages) - the screen has completely frozen and required me to press the power button to get going again. If I left the computer overnight, do you think it will unfreeze? ie is trying to do stuff while the dvd is rendering causing issues?
 
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